HILLINGDON UNITARY DEVELOPMENT PLAN - London Borough ...

15. PROPOSALS
Introduction
15.1 The issues covered in the preceding Chapters on 'Open Land and Countryside', 'Housing', 'Local
Economy', 'Accessibility and Movement' are particularly relevant to certain sites and areas of the Borough
and consequently site specific policies and proposals have been identified and prepared. For example, the
Council's regeneration strategy concentrates on the south of the Borough and has identified the
Hayes/West Drayton Corridor and key sites within it as the focus for regeneration (see Fig 13). This
chapter describes these areas and other site specific policies in relation to the current Planning
Administrative Areas which are arranged into the following sections:
1. The Hayes/West Drayton Corridor and adjoining land to the north and south. This
comprises the whole of the Hayes/Harlington/Heathrow Planning Area in addition to the
Yiewsley/West Drayton part of the Uxbridge/Harefield Planning Area.
2. Uxbridge/Harefield Planning Area.
3. Ruislip/Northwood Planning Area.
1. HAYES/WEST DRAYTON CORRIDOR
15.2 Hayes contains the largest industrial area in the Borough. It has easy access to the motorway
system and Heathrow Airport, improved by the completion of the Hayes By-Pass in 1992. Hayes Town is
also one of the Borough's major shopping centres. To the south the village of Harlington has seen
substantial development since the 1960's and there is continuing pressure for development especially along
the A4 Bath Road. Between the villages of Harlington and Sipson the land is mostly in agricultural use, but
mineral extraction has occurred on a number of sites.
15.3 Yiewsley and West Drayton together comprise a major town centre in the Borough surrounded by
extensive residential and industrial areas. The area was primarily agricultural until the early part of the
nineteenth century when the opening of the Grand Junction Canal (now the main line of the Grand Union
Canal) and the Great Western Railway contributed to its rapid growth. In addition to traditional industrial
areas around Horton Road and Trout Road/Packet Boat Lane, Stockley Business Park is located to the east
of Yiewsley, north of the Grand Union Canal.
15.4 To the south of the M4 motorway lie the villages of Longford, Harmondsworth and Sipson,
largely surrounded by open land designated as Green Belt and much influenced by the presence of
Heathrow Airport.
15.5 The Hayes/West Drayton Corridor which includes Hayes Town to the east and Yiewsley and
West Drayton to the west is a key business area of over 700 acres of land within 15 distinct Industrial and
Business Areas (IBAs) in the South of the Borough, reflecting the traditional employment areas established
along the Great Western Railway and the Grand Union Canal. It is one of the last significant
concentrations of manufacturing in West London. The Corridor is located close to Heathrow Airport and
the M4/M25 and the national motorway network. However the decline of manufacturing, particularly in
the defence sector, and other structural employment changes have created major problems in the area.
15.6 In recent years the number of jobs in the manufacturing sector has dropped dramatically. Rather
than purely a cyclical decline, these job losses also reflect structural changes in the Corridor, changes that
have contributed to high levels of vacant industrial and commercial floorspace. In turn this decline has
resulted in pockets of decaying infrastructure and relatively high unemployment as well as other indicators
of deprivation.
London Borough of Hillingdon Unitary Development Plan